Rant of the Week

Goebbels Redux

It is a little bizarre to see Sarah Palin and John McCain both continue to charge that Obama "pals around with terrorists" long after the slightest shred of credibility has long left that scene.  They do the same with the "Joe the Plumber" references, though any rational person can now quickly verify that, in fact, Joe the Plumber keeps more of his money under Obama's plan than he does under McCain's.

You would think--I did-- that a politician would stop using a certain line of attack once it has been discredited.  So it's somewhat amazing to see McCain and Pail continue to flog those charges at every opportunity. 

Did someone advise McCain that the truth here doesn't matter?  It doesn't matter at all.  If you repeat the same charge over and over and over again, no matter how ridiculous, a certain segment of the voting public will begin to believe it.  Heck, about 20% of adult Virginians think Obama's a Moslem.  How hard can it be to persuade other white Americans that he actually pals around with terrorists.

It occurs to me that each side tends to make the accusations that they would feel were most shocking if levied against their own candidate.  McCain lacks empathy for the working man.  He is erratic.  He is unconcerned about the working class.  The Republicans have the most horror for charges that a candidate is not patriotic, doesn't bowl, doesn't like guns and shooting furry creatures. 

And Obama pals around with terrorists.

And they repeat it and repeat it, and no one wants to be charged with inflammatory rhetoric here, but isn't that the class "big lie" strategy?  Don't like that insinuation?  How else do you explain the utterly brazen disregard for factual information here?  McCain simply doesn't care whether informed, reasonable people believe it's untrue-- he's going to repeat it anyway, over and over again, because he believes it will sway voters.  He believes in this.  He has no hesitation.  He has nothing but contempt for the idea of campaigning with honor and respect, as a gentleman, in spite of his increasingly absurd claims to be driven by such sentiment.  Driven by it?  He pisses on it every time he speaks.

When a committee of legislators in Alaska found the Sarah Palin had, indeed, violated State Ethics rules in the way she tried to force Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan to fire her former brother-in-law Mike Wooten, Palin brazenly claimed that the report exonerated her.  Palin has been touting her "maverick" credentials as the governor who stopped the notorious "bridge to nowhere" when she did no such thing.  McCain was pro-choice only a few years ago.  He voted against the Bush tax cut when it was first presented.  Forget all that.  Don't even look it up.  You are too stupid to look it up.  When I tell you I believe something it means exactly what I say it means and nothing more and nothing less.   What is a "google"?

Of course, the standard conservative rejoinder is "the Democrats do it too".  Bullshit.  Yes, both parties exaggerate and distort each other's and their own records, but they are not the same.  The Republicans, in this election, have built their entire campaign on it.  The Democrats might be saying that Northwest is North, but the Republicans are insisting that up is down and black is white. 

 

Copyright © 2008  Bill Van Dyk  All rights reserved.

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